Category: Technology

The realm of Technical Support is there to provide expert assistance to those who are not so tech-savvy. Although they still expect you to know what a computer is, and how to turn it on, and to know that you can’t ‘fix the internet’ because it isn’t pretty enough. You have been warned…

Coworker: “Thank you for calling technical support, how can I help you?”

Customer: “I think my tablet is about to explode!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, did you just say explode?”

Customer: “Yes! I think there’s a bomb in it! I was watching a video, and all of a sudden the video stopped and it started making this awful noise! It was a bomb, I’m sure of it! I threw it out in the front yard and I’ve already called the police to send the bomb squad!”

Coworker:*unable to hide the fact that he’s now laughing* “You… you called the bomb squad?!”

Customer: “Yes! I wasn’t sure if I should throw it outside or into the toilet!”

Coworker: “No! You don’t want to throw it into the toilet! Is the tablet still in the yard?”

Customer: “Of course! The bomb squad hasn’t come yet!”

Coworker: “Can you go outside and grab the tablet for me? I promise it won’t blow up. It’s just frozen. We can fix it.”

Customer: “I don’t know… Okay, I guess. If you’re sure.”

(There is the sound of a frozen tablet glitching on a video gets loud as she goes outside.)

Customer: “See! You can hear it! It’s going to explode!”

Coworker:*struggling not to laugh directly at the customer* “No, ma’am, I assure you it’s not. Go ahead and pick it up and press the power button for me, then hold it down.”

Customer: “It turned off! The screen is off! It’s going to blow!”

Coworker: “No, ma’am, we just turned it off. Go ahead and turn it back on for me again?”

(We are running a promotion with a discount code, so we always get a lot of calls when this occurs from people who are having difficulty redeeming the coupon.)

Me: “Thanks for calling [Business]. This is [My Name] speaking. How can I assist you?”

Customer: “You know, you guys, you send these discounts, and they just never work, and I, you know, I want to cancel my order.”

Me: “Sorry you’re having some difficulty with that. Would you like me to see if I can help you place the order?”

Customer: “No, I just want to cancel it. I’m tired of hearing from all of these places that it’s ‘user error.’”

Me: “I understand. What was your order number?”

Customer: “My what?”

Me: “Your order number. I’d be happy to cancel it for you so you aren’t charged at all, since you couldn’t use the discount code.”

Customer: “I don’t have an order number.”

Me: “I can look it up by your last name, then.”

(I can’t find an order from that last name. I try asking more and more obvious questions, like ‘are you sure you placed an order on this website?’ since literally hundreds of customers have used the code with no difficulty.)

Customer: “I just got fed up because I couldn’t find a place to put the code, and then it wouldn’t accept it, so I just closed the window.”

Me: “So you’re saying you never actually placed an order?”

Customer: “No, I just closed your crappy website.”

Me: “Sir… if you didn’t place an order, we don’t have anything to cancel.”

Customer: “Why won’t you let me cancel my order?”

Me: “If you haven’t placed an order, there’s nothing for us to cancel. You just… don’t place the order.”

Customer: “So you’re saying you won’t cancel my order?”

Me: “No, I’m saying that there’s no order to cancel.” *I’m reaching here* “Say you were in line at a sub shop, and then you decided you wanted McDonald’s instead. You don’t have to go to the register at the sub shop to tell them you’re leaving if they didn’t make a sandwich for you, right?”

(I’ve been talking to this customer for about five minutes already, answering questions about telescopes that we sell, and some of the questions just end up getting a bit silly…)

Customer: “So, with these telescopes would you be able to see meteors and other stars with them?”

Me: “You would be able to see meteors though they’re going to pass through your field of view so quickly it’d be pointless trying to find them, as you’d need to be aiming at the exact spot they’re going to pass through. As for other stars, they’re so far away that they will still just look like dots of light in the night sky.”

Customer: “What about our sun? Could you look at that?”

Me: “If you wanted to suffer eye damage, you certainly could, though it’s not recommended.”